New Hunting plots in Nebraska

[lanceoutfitters]

I would like to share with you guys a few things I have been working on the past few weeks. One of my leased properties had almost everything I could ask for, but it needed that little something to help me put Deer and Turkey right in front of clients. I have brain stormed most the summer with how I was going to do this and it all came together this past weekend. I wanted to do this in a two phase session with the tree removal and grading done in July and then leave it fallow for a month in order to allow the weed seeds to germinate enough for me to spray some roundup and then seed what I wanted. This is a low bottom area that has a small dry creek channel on the other side of the berm and during heavy rains the water will wash through what is now the plot. That had a lot to do with what seed I decided to plant. There is no easy way to get a tractor to this plot but I was able to make a skid steer path in and out. Total distance from blind to parking of vehicles is about 50yds. The land owner lives about that far away and the deer and turkey end up in his yard all the time. There are horses on this piece of ground that will be fenced out as soon as the plot starts to take hold. They have a perfect mineral station set up for the horses and state law states that we can hunt within 200 yrds of a salt or mineral block if it is used for livestock operations. The path in and out of the plot I seeded rape, annual rye-grass, winter wheat, oats, western, intermediate, and tall wheat grasses. The plot which is about 1.5-2 acres received 15lbs of medium red clover seed, 10lbs of alfalfa, 5 lbs of oil seed radishes (the ones with the very long sod busting tuber that runs deep), and a small 5lb J-strip of winter wheat almost down the center. The work took place over about 13 work hours split over 3 days. Sunday night the plot received about .80" of rain which caused a slight amount of washing through it since it was never tilled.


Enjoy the before and after pictures. 

Matt

[lanceoutfitters]

here are the mid-end process of the plot

[lanceoutfitters]

This is the final product. 

[lanceoutfitters]

90% of the trees taken out were taken out by the roots with the skid steer. They were mainly ash and elm with an occasional hackberry mixed in. The tree here and there that are still standing are loan oaks. There are a few 100yr old oaks on the outside edges of the plot and a few that had died from being shaded out by the ash and elms. With the amount of water and squirrels around this location there should be tons of oak seedlings to contend with next year.

[lanceoutfitters]

Here is a view from the ground blind location looking almost due south. The plot is in a J-ish shape. With the heal of the J on top of one of the berms being where the ground blind sits. 

[Dutch]

Heck of a lot of work, thats for sure. Should be interesting to see how it comes in

[lanceoutfitters]

I'm working on making a 6' wide double disk to go on the front of the skid steer and a 6' wide planter. The disk would have come in handy here after all the compaction over the years of the horses and the skid steer all weekend. Its easy to get to so I'll check back in a week or so and see what I got. Next pictures will be after hunting season is open (September 1st). I am very excited to see the Merriam and Eastern turkeys strut it out here next spring.

[lanceoutfitters]

The plot after 2 days and 5 days.

[Dutch]

Some well timed rains always help.

[lanceoutfitters]

Starting on the sunday (just over a week ago) we received these rains. Sunday 1", friday 1", saturday .45", and as of 8 am this morning another .20". That is unheard of for nebraska, especially this time of year.

[Dutch]

Monsoon season!

Any moisture the west gets is good. I hope the major drought out there is soon alleviated.

[lanceoutfitters]

Corn process have taken a huge dip this year because except for the month of July, most of the state has had adequate or above average rain fall totals I here is the plot after one week, the Turkey was one of the young toms in the plot this evening.

[lanceoutfitters]

Here are a few more

[lanceoutfitters]

Not to shabby for 10 days

[Dutch]

What type of fertilizer did you apply and how much?

[lanceoutfitters]

Here is the history on this property.there is a 40 acre pasture that is mostly trees. This pasture lies at the bottom of a drainage and it drains about 5000 acres of crop ground. When we get a heavy rain quite a but of the pasture is flooded. The topography of the pasture itself has lots of berms and ridges in it that become islands when the dry creek floods. With the large amount of trees the water status and soaks in over time. This plot is in one of the low areas that will have water wash through during a flood event. There are two berms that are roughly 10-15 ft higher than the plot. this spring and summer I did one round of roundup and two rounds of 24d-lv6. That allowed the small amount of weeds that were there (shade tolerant or not) to sprout and be killed. this area has been shaded out for over 10 years.

For at least that long there have been horses in this pasture. They like to stay in the shade spots without weeds and they do what horses do best. That is the extent of fertilizer that had been put on this plot.any more was runoff, but this is the first year it has washed in the past 4 years. The main reasons the plot looks that good is because the moisture in the ground allowed the seed to start to germinate as soon as it hit the ground. The second reasons is the timely rains and the amounts. Enough for the seed and soil to handle but not enough to wash. The third reason is because I over seeded the area because of the possibility of winter kill, seed washing, and possible over graising. The lack of seed seed that can germinate and handle the full sunlight environment doesn't hurt.

[lanceoutfitters]

update, here are a few pictures from 2 weeks ago.

[lanceoutfitters]

The second picture is from the ground blind location.